Interstellar Power Couple
Translator: Mukyuu
Quality Check: Lala
First Published on Chaleuria
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Chapter 74 Part 2: Uncle’s Got Swag
“Your mental prowess is amazing.” Lei Jue looked at him with a smile. “I gave it my all, but I could only affect you just a tiny bit.”
“That’s already incredible.” Xiao Lingyu was very surprised. If Lei Jue kept improving, did that mean he would be able to control humans in the future?!
“Scared?” Lei Jue slowly withdrew his hand, asking Xiao Lingyu with a laugh.
“Why would I be? You wouldn’t hurt me.” Xiao Lingyu put his arms around Lei Jue. “As long as you don’t make me stay away from you, I won’t be afraid.”
“Hmm.”
“Little Jue…”
“Hmm?”
“Babe…”
“Hmmm.”
Carrera let out a sudden cough from the communicator, “Sir, I know I shouldn’t interrupt you and Madam’s cuddling time, but Uncle’s message has been sitting here for a while. I’m afraid he’ll do something rash if I don’t let you know soon.”
Xiao Lingyu immediately opened the message from Uncle and discovered that Uncle was still on Long Forest Mountain. He had sent them another photo but this time, the contents of the photo was different. The image was filled with bugs, smaller than the ones before.
“Male bugs?” Lei Jue looked at the image carefully. “Ask if it’s convenient for uncle to go into holographic mode.”
“He can.” Xiao Lingyu activated holographic mode as soon as Di Lin replied with affirmative. Before long, a small, swaggering and high-spirited tree-person appeared inside their room.
“Little Jue, look, is this the male nightleisure bug?” Di Lin pinched a tiny bug between two skinny branches. “It’s head looks different from the ones I caught before.”
“That’s it. Uncle, I can’t believe you actually found it.”
The nightleisure bug was extremely venomous, and a single bite could be deadly. Relatively speaking, the males were more venomous than females, and the victim of a male nightleisure bug likely wouldn’t live to take another breath. But male nightleisure bugs were extremely rare; Lei Jue hadn’t actually counted on uncle finding one.
“I’ll bring it back tonight. Tell Lingyu to get things ready for me.” The plant-person carefully put the bug inside his ‘pouch’ and then continued, “After I drop by your place, I want to hurry back to the Zuos and play with that Zuo Feng guy.”
“Again?” Lei Jue asked. “Take it easy on him uncle, what if he finds out?”
“Relax, relax. I’ve already thought of a plan.” The little tree-human tossed his leaf-hair and said. “Oh, right, can I request a seat indoors?”
“Tsk, nobody was going to make you sit outside. Last time Lingyu said he’d take care of things, but you went off on your own.” Lei Jue retorted. “Don’t worry, we definitely won’t have you hanging outside the aircraft for hours.”
If it hadn’t been for the children, and the fact that Lei Jue was limited in his actions because he couldn’t turn into a tree-human, he’d have gone to hunt the bugs himself. There would have been no need for his uncle to suffer then.
“I’ll wait for Lingyu’s message.” The small tree-human waved his tree-arms. “See you.”
Lei Jue watched as the little tree-human disappeared from view. He thought about it for a moment before telling Xiao Lingyu, “Tell the people you send to bring the storage boxes for the nightleisure bug. Once uncle realises we sent someone out to meet up with him, he likely won’t come back.”
“Okay.” Xiao Lingyu contacted Lu Xian and made the arrangements. Then, he started plotting ways to sneakily dispose of the Vice Party leader and Mr. Huang using the bug, and plant the crime on Party Leader Li.
The triplets’ first-month party or their hundredth-day party would have been an excellent opportunity for that, because the aforementioned people would definitely have attended. It would have ruined the festivities though, and Xiao Lingyu didn’t want to spill blood on such important days of the childrens’ lives. They’d have to think of some other time.
On Lu Xian’s side, as soon as he received the order, he piloted a very special stealth aircraft to pick up Di Lin.
Di Lin had minimized himself, and was still in his humanoid tree form, so he didn’t take up much space at all. As soon as he boarded the aircraft he asked Lu Xian, “Do you have any water to drink?”
Lu Xian had seen his share of plant ability users before, but he had definitely never met one like Uncle.
He took out a bottle of water for Di Lin, assuming Di Lin was thirsty. Turns out, he’d guessed the ‘thirsty’ part correctly,, but Di Lin’d method of drinking was another story. Di Lin stuck his roots into the bottle and sucked up the liquid until the roots, roughly where his ankles were, swelled to the size of the mouth of the bottle and completely sealed it off. Then, he leaned hard to one side and fell over onto the seat, still attached to the bottle, and fell asleep.
Lu Xian was a bit speechless.
Was this really Lei Jue’s uncle?!
He was actually kind of adorable!
Mr. Adorable didn’t sleep for more than two minutes before suddenly waking up. “Little Jue didn’t say that I had to go back did he?”
Lu Xian shook his head. “No, Lingyu said you could… uh… continue to walk around.”
Di Lin rolled his eyes. “He said to continue goofing off, right?”
Lu Xian was once again robbed of words.
“Send me to Deity Mountain in Southern Clearwater, and then you can go.” Di Lin sat up. “Since they didn’t say I had to go back, did they tell you to bring anything?”
“There is a box.” Lu Xian took out the insect case with tiny breathing holes and gave it to Di Lin.
Once Di Lin confirmed that those airholes were too small for the nightleisure bugs to escape through, he transferred the bugs from his ‘pouch’ into the insect case. He went out of his way to prevent Lu Xian from being bitten, and grew many slender branches for grabbing the bugs. In the end, he kept two female bugs for himself and closed the box.
“Whatever you do, don’t let them touch you.” After giving his instructions, Di Li twisted his tiny body around and went back to sleep.
Lu Xian looked at those bugs, each about the size of a rice kernel and full of venom, and carefully put the box away. He then rapidly flew for Deity Mountain.
It was still dawn on Deity Mountain; the sky was still dark, and fog covered the entire mountain, making it hard to see anything.
By the time Di Lin woke up, he had already sucked up the entire bottle of water. He had to work a bit to yank his feet out of the bottle, then he placed his branch-like hands against the windowsill and looked out for a few moments. He poked Lu Xian and demanded, “Open up the window, I’ll jump down.”
Lu Xian got scared, “Jump down? No need, uncle, I can put you on the ground.”
Di Lin waved his hand, “Open up the windows and keep flying. Get back to Northern Ling while it’s still dark.”
Lu Xian knew Uncle was trying to keep their tracks hidden as much as possible, so he didn’t ask any more questions. He decreased their speed and opened up a small window. A minute later, Di Lin really did fly out of the window.
A moment passed, and Lu Xian heard an overjoyed and reckless cry from far away/
“Yahoooooooo~~~~~~”
Lu Xian was once again at a loss for words.
Deity Mountain wasn’t far from the Zuo residence. Di Lin took advantage of the night and hurried as fast as he could towards the Zuo residence. The Zuos were all asleep currently, and he snuck into Zuo Feng’s room the same way as before.
Zuo Feng was fast asleep, while the balai tree was in the same exact spot as it was before. But the sprout, which should have died, was still alive.
Di Lin took one look and knew who was behind it. It had to be his nephew. He hadn’t imagined that Zuo Feng would get so invested in such a tiny sprout; it was clear how important the tree was to him.
But it had to go!
Di Lin sneakily crawled into the pot and sucked the liquid out of the sprout that Zuo Feng had so babied. He then turned himself into a replica of it and placed down his roots.
The next day, Zuo Feng woke up and habitually glanced at the potted plant in his room. He discovered that while the sprout was looking lively, the main tree seemed to be a little droopy.
Not enough water?
Zuo Feng spritzed some water at it.
Upon examining it again in the afternoon, he thought frustratedly, Goddammit! Why is it even more wilted now?!
Did he give it too much water?!
And so Zuo Feng didn’t water it again for the entire day, despite the urge to do so.
Another day passed before he reached out to Xiao Lingyu. “Xiao Lingyu, are you free today? I might have to ask your wife for another favor.”
Xiao Lingyu didn’t have to use his brains to realize what was happening. He smiled silently at Lei Jue and then answered, “Sure.”
Without a minute’s hesitation, Zuo Feng picked up the pot and went to see Lei Jue.
When Lei Jue saw the tree, he had the same sensation as on Mount Rikalun. He knew the tree was his uncle, so he pretended to have a hard time healing the tree, telling Zuo Feng, “This tree might be sick. Hold on a second.” Then he took the pot into his room and left Xiao Lingyu to distract Zuo Feng with small talk outside.
He quietly asked the tree, “Uncle, what are you up to?”
Di Lin was the small sprout. The tip of the sprout scanned around the room, and he hurriedly enlarged when he made sure Zuo Feng wasn’t going to come in. He then hurriedly sucked all the water out of the balai tree so that it wilted to death immediately, before he turned into an identical-looking shilai tree and directed, “The tree on the ground is poisonous. Don’t revive it. Have Lingyu destroy it.”
The speed at which the exchange took place made Lei Jue speechless.
Di Lin successfully took root in his shilah tree form, and shook his leafy ‘hair’. He puffed out his chest and placed both hands on his waist. “How cool was that?”
Lei Jue had nothing to say.
Later, Zuo Feng looked at his rejuvenated plant and said to Lei Jue earnestly, “Thank you.”
The ‘thank you’ was extremely sincere, yet it was met with Lei Jue’s guilty smile.